Interesting times.
The times, they are a-changin’. Five years ago this month, at the very dawn of the Obama Epoch, there was a flutter in the dovecote where the armchair military analysts hang out. A rumor circulated that Russia planned to secure the use of the Yemeni island of Socotra, in the Indian Ocean, as a naval base. The old Soviet navy had used Socotra Continue reading “Russian naval bases for world peace”
Peace in our time.
What is there to say that most readers even need to hear? As he did so often, Reagan summed it up nicely in a brief, well-known phrase:
Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.
An especially important point here is that the converse is true. The conditions for major war develop much more easily when the U.S. is too weak. They are developing as we speak. Continue reading “Defense cuts and the fragile, undefended bubble we now live in”
The missiles of 2014?
Alternate title: Sink the Kharg!
Intellectual honesty required putting the recent threats issued by Iran in a realistic perspective. While we should take Iran’s geopolitical posture seriously, it does our own deliberations a disservice to accept absurdities from Iran rather than calling them out. Someone’s bound to notice eventually, so it’s best to sort the nonsense out up front.
That said, we should be concerned about what Iran has been doing in the last 48-72 hours. This is not because Iran can make good on threats like those depicted in the truly moronic Lenziran video (see link above); it’s because the Iranian regime has escalated its verbal attacks dramatically. These aren’t random bursts of rhetoric. They appear to have a specific purpose. Continue reading “Iran: Now for the not-so-funny part”
Two, by sea.
They’ve been saying they were going to do it, and now they’re on the way. A pair of Iranian navy ships, the frigate Sabalan and supply ship Kharg, left Bandar Abbas this morning headed for the Atlantic Ocean.
It has been inevitable that the Iranian navy would make good on its promise to deploy to the Atlantic. Its ships made a voyage to China in 2013, and have been conducting extended patrols in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea since late 2008. An Atlantic expedition has been by no means beyond Iran’s capabilities for some time now. Continue reading “Great news: The Iranians are coming”
Memorial services for the Pax Americana will be held shortly.
“History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.” — Ronald Reagan
It made the most news when China did it a few days ago. But it’s been building for a while, and it’s not just off China. As the holidays settle in on us, probes of other nations’ sea and air space are in the air. Is war coming tomorrow? No. But whether it comes after tomorrow will depend on more than gestures from that shapeless blob of geopolitical potential that we may now, in a post-superpower world, call the “status quo powers.” It will depend on the outcomes the status quo powers can secure.
The China Challenge Continue reading “Bad tidings of sea and air space challenges”
The Optimistic Conservative 